


Way Back Home

by jerobitaille



Series: Darkness Before the Dawn [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-10 04:14:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21473743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerobitaille/pseuds/jerobitaille
Summary: Jason and Dick in Blüdhaven following "Clearing the Rubble."
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Series: Darkness Before the Dawn [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1547878
Comments: 19
Kudos: 317





	Way Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting on my laptop at various states of finished-ness pretty much since I posted Clearing the Rubble. I've finally got it to a point that it's post-able, so here it is.

**Way Back Home**

For the life of him, Jason can’t figure out how he’d ended up here. Curled up on Dick’s couch in Blüdhaven, a half-eaten pizza on the table and some old black and white movie playing on the television. Dick is sitting close enough to him that Jason needs only lean slightly to the right and the two of them would be pressed together from hip to shoulders. It’s a temptation that Jason desperately wants to give into. He wants to soak up the warmth Dick’s touch would offer and maybe begin to feel human again. To feel alive.

Jason’s not entirely sure what he is anymore. It can’t be human, whatever it is. Humans tend to stay dead when someone blows them up and since he’s been in the Pit, he’s felt decidedly less than human. There’s an almost crawling sensation under his skin that he can never seem to shake. Except this afternoon when he’d woken up lying half on top of Dick. For the first time he can recall the itch had been gone. Jason is curious to find out if it will happen again

It would be a relief. From the time he wakes up till he falls asleep, he’s on edge. A frayed nerve sparking against everything and nothing. What Jason wouldn’t give for one day of peace from it all. The closest he’s come was this morning, curled up in with Dick in bed. Those few blissful moments before he’d become aware enough to realize that the muffled conversation he could hear was Dick arguing with Bruce. Because somehow Bruce is always involved.

In the end, Dick’s the one who ends up making the decision. As the older man leans forward to snag another piece of pizza, he shifts just enough so that when he leans back into the cushions, he’s pressed against Jason’s side.

Like a switch being turned off, Jason can relax again. The itch is gone, faded into the ether as though it had never been simply because Dick is touching him. It makes no sense. Jason’s been touched plenty since his resurrection. Touched, prodded, poked, punched, hit, slapped, kicked and every variation in between. The only kind of touch missing has been this. A touch without expectation that Jason longs to sink into. Jason barely pays attention to the old movie playing on the television, simply enjoying the normalcy of it all. This is the first time he’s been able to just relax and sit still since Talia shoved him into the Pit. He’s no longer working towards some endgame, not training himself to the point of exhaustion so he can be a better sort of vigilante—the type that could orchestrate what went down in Crime Alley the night before and everything that had led up to it. For the first time in over five years, he can sit still. Enjoy a pizza. Hang out with Dick. Relax. Breathe.

“Between me and Alfred, we’ll keep you safe from Bruce,” Dick says suddenly around a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni. “We’re not going to lose you again now that we have you back.”

Jason lets out a dejected huff, his right shoulder momentarily flaring in pain as he shifts closer to Dick. “Because Bruce is known for his restraint.”

“He doesn’t get a choice in the matter. Not after yesterday.”

The venom in Dick’s voice is disconcerting. Even more so considering it’s in his defense. It was always Bruce and Dick against him, the hotheaded teenager. Jason was used to being told to calm down and that he was overreacting. He’d half expected Dick to carry on the argument Bruce had started in Crime Alley. Only he isn’t. Dick isn’t trying to talk him out of his anger towards Bruce. If anything, he’s reinforcing it and Jason can’t help but wonder what had happened in the years he was gone to cause such a shift.

Even so, it’s instinct for Jason to argue with Dick. During his tenure as the second Robin, he spent all of his time trying to measure up to the standards Dick set before him. And failing miserably because no one would ever measure up to Dick as far as Bruce was concerned. Bruce would probably consider him an utter failure as a sidekick—an all too replaceable boy blunder, to paraphrase the Joker. Jason can’t help but wonder if Bruce’s newest recruit is aware of the standards he has to live up to and if he’s as daunted by it as Jason always was.

“I’m not sorry for what I did,” Jason says, his gaze focused on the television so he doesn’t have to see Dick’s reaction. He needs to say this, to make sure that Dick isn’t going into this blind. Even if it means he loses him in the long run. “I’d do it again, a hundred times over, if it puts an end to that demented bastard. He deserves to die for all the pain he’s caused and I don’t know why Bruce insists on saving him.” 

Leaning forward, Dick set his plate on the table alongside the pizza box. Out of the corner of his eye, Jason watched as Dick turned himself so that he was sideways on the couch with his left leg tucked under him and his right foot on the floor. He doesn’t say anything at first, instead plucking Jason’s plate from his lax grip and setting it on the table as well. Jason still can’t bring himself to look over at Dick, even when the older man places his hand overtop of Jason’s where it lies upon his thigh. When Jason still doesn’t turn his head, Dick squeezes his hand briefly.

“Come on, Jaybird.”

“I told you I hate that name,” Jason growls before he can stop himself, turning his head so he’s facing Dick. The grin on Dick’s face stutters his anger to a halt and leaves him floundering. 

“Yeah, but it got you to look at me,” Dick says with an unapologetic shrug. He squeezes Jason’s hand a second time and, when Jason doesn’t pull his hand away, slides his fingers through Jason’s to squeeze a third time. When he does start to speak, there’s an angry undercurrent to his voice that makes him sound more like Bruce than Jason’s not entirely comfortable with. “Look, I’m not going to pretend that I understand what the past five years have been like for you. But I get wanting him dead. He deserves to die for everything he’s done.”

“Then why is he still alive?” Jason demands before he can stop himself, that same rage he’d felt last night threatening to consume him once again. “Why haven’t you or Bruce or even the damned replacement finished him off?”

Dick laughed bitterly, leaning back into the arm of the couch. “You think I haven’t tried? Back after I first found out what he’d done to you, I put a lot of effort into killing him. I nearly succeeded, too. But then Bruce convinced me that letting him rot away in Arkham was a more lasting punishment than a quick death. Made sense at the time—still does. The only problem is that he keeps escaping.”

There’s sense to what Dick’s saying. The idea of Joker wasting away in a solitary cell deep down in Arkham’s basement levels for years on end fills Jason with a sense of satisfaction. Except he knows that’s not how it’s going to go. Jason gives it a month at most until he’s managed to escape again to match wits with Bruce. A month until he hurts, maims or kills someone else then the whole routine will start up again because Bruce won’t let go of his insane notion that killing a mass murdering psychopath is the beginning of the end. Nevermind the peace that the mad clown’s death would bring to those Bruce claimed to love, as always it was the Batman’s rules that held sway over everything.

Sustaining that anger in the face of Dick’s soft expression is near impossible. There’s a compelling mix of concern, sympathy and affection writ across Dick’s features. It’s been so long since anyone looked at him in a way even vaguely similar to that, if ever, that Jason doesn’t quite know how to react. So he does what he used to when he was a kid and feeling unsure of himself and hides from those emotions. Since Dick still has his fingers tangled with Jason’s, Jason rearranges himself so his head’s resting in Dick’s lap. Almost automatically, Dick’s free hand comes to rest on Jason’s head, fingers sliding through his hair.

It doesn’t take much effort for Jason to curl in on himself and make his body as small as possible on the couch. Too many thoughts are whirling through his head, threatening to unravel him again. He distracts himself with the feel of Dick’s fingers as they massage his scalp, anchoring himself to the present. To the garlicky scent of cheese and pepperoni and the quiet hum of conversation on the television. To Dick’s phone as it gives a sudden buzzing jump on the coffee table. The phone’s not ringing and Dick doesn’t appear concerned about the text at first. It’s only when it’s followed by a second then a third message in rapid succession that Jason feels Dick tense.

“You should check that,” Jason tells him, reaching with his free hand to grab Dick’s phone and hand it to him.

The fourth text that buzzes against Jason’s palm all but announces who’s trying so desperately to get a hold of Dick. One of two people, possibly. Jason doesn’t know whether Alfred’s changed his opinion on texting in the years since his death. He allows himself a brief grin at the thought of the prim English butler meticulously tapping away on a smartphone screen, glasses tipped forward down the bridge of his nose. A smile that fades the instant he hears Dick curse under his breath.

“Bruce is coming.”

Jason knew this was coming, yet he still doesn’t quite know how to react. Every instinct he has is telling him to run away. That Bruce will only continue what he’d started last night in Crime Alley. In truth, Jason is somewhat surprised that he’s not already locked up alongside the Joker in the bowels of Arkham. He can’t say he blames him, either. Jason’s not entirely sure he’s stable at the best of times.

“Stay, Jaybird.”

“Dickie....”

“Nope.” Dick shakes his head, cutting off the argument Jason hasn’t actually figured out yet. “Bruce doesn’t get to chase you away because he feels guilty and doesn’t want to face it. That’s not how it works.”

Jason laughs in spite of himself, the absurdity of Gotham’s golden boy defending him against its dark knight a farce in and of itself. Because Jason knows that he’s far from the innocent party in this situation despite the fact that he’s entirely justified in his anger. The Joker should have died a long time ago because being committed to Arkham Asylum obviously hadn’t helped fix whatever was broken in the insane clown’s damaged mind. Jason’s not entirely sure that the Joker’s cell doesn’t have a revolving door on it for all he seems to come and go as he pleases.

“You do remember that I’m a mass murderer, right? That I’ve spent most of the past five years honing that skill for the sole purpose of killing the Joker? We talked about it like two minutes ago, so it shouldn’t be much of a stretch to remember.” Jason shifts so he’s leaning back against the opposite arm of the couch, legs pulled up so he can rest his forearms on his drawn up knees. “Chasing me out of Gotham is pretty much Bruce’s go-to maneuver when it comes to criminals. And I am a criminal, in case you forgot. As of last night I pretty much ran the drug trade in Gotham.”

The fact that Dick reaches for one of the few remaining pieces of pizza instead of answering is proof enough that he knows there’s no real argument to be made. Jason can’t help but wonder what Gotham’s many tabloids would make of the fact that one of Batman’s former foundlings was the Red Hood. Some sadistic part of him is half tempted to call and leave an anonymous tip just to see what happens.

“Is it Bruce or Bats who’s on his way?” Jason asks, needing to make a plan of attack for what was coming. The fact that it also implied he was staying appeared to put Dick at ease, something his presence hadn’t done in a long time.

“The text came from his personal phone, so Bruce.”

Jason allows himself to uncurl slightly, toes stretching out to brush against Dick’s thigh. “I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad.”

“Me either,” Dick admits as he tosses the crust back into the box. “So how do you want to do this?”

The question startles Jason more than he expects. Jason honestly hadn’t thought to be given a choice in the matter. Now that he’s been presented with the choice, Jason finds himself at a loss. Knowing Bruce as he does, the older man will bulldoze his way in and insist on things being done his way. Because that was what Bruce did. Things were done his way or not at all. This would no doubt be just like everything else. Bruce had already decided that Jason was guilty of breaking their code and was no doubt on his way to pass sentence on him.

“I don’t know,” Jason admits eventually. “I don’t—”

knock knock

Bruce is already showing more restraint than Jason had expected because he has no doubt that the older man has a key for Dick’s apartment. Barging in was certainly in Bruce’s wheelhouse of confrontations.

“Dick, open the door.”

The barely controlled rage in Bruce’s tone was more what Jason had been expecting. Every instinct was screaming for Jason to bolt out of the window and avoid the confrontation altogether. He could go to ground and wait out Bruce’s anger. It wouldn’t be long before some other catastrophe befell Gotham and Bruce would forget about him again. He could sink back into the shadows, let his gang run amok and keep Bruce guessing whether he was still around.

Only Jason doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“Fuck him,” Jason growls. He shoves himself off the couch and stalks towards the heavy steel door before he can talk himself out of it. This was happening on his terms and not Bruce’s.

If Bruce is surprised to see him answering the door, he doesn’t show it. His face is utterly impassive, as though he’s looking through Jason rather than at him. To be honest, Jason’s not entirely sure that he older man is capable of seeing him as something other than the source of his greatest failure. The sidekick that he didn’t train well enough to survive an encounter with the Joker. The one that died because he wasn’t fast enough. There’s probably a few other titles Bruce has for him when he’s trying to feel extra somber and guilty.

“What do you want, Bruce?” Jason demands when it becomes obvious that Bruce isn’t going to say anything. “Come to drag me to Arkham? Lock me up side by side with the bastard who killed me?”

When Bruce still doesn’t say anything, Jason growls and stalks back towards Dick who had remained in the living room. Dick is standing beside the couch now and Jason stands side by side with him, leaning in just enough so their shoulders and upper arms touch. It calms something inside him to know that Dick is on his side and that the older man hasn’t written him off like the man who’d once pretended to be his father has.

“Why are you here?” Dick asks, not angry, but with an edge that Jason doesn’t normally relate with him. “You never come to Blüdhaven.”

At last Bruce steps into the apartment, closing the door behind him. “And you know better than to associate with criminals.”

“Oh fuck you, Bruce,” Jason spits out, barely refraining from stalking towards him. “You’re just as much of a criminal as I am. The only difference is that I was actually doing something to make Gotham less of a shithole. I was making it safe by controlling the crimes you’d rather ignore. If you’d have let me, I would have stopped the Joker for good.”

“By becoming just as bad as him.”

“If that’s what it takes to finally put him in the ground once and for all.”

Then came the stare-off that was pretty much inevitable in any confrontation with Bruce. If Bruce didn’t think something was going his way, he’d stare the other person into submission. As a child, Jason had been fascinated by the tactic and had even tried it out himself a few times before that fateful trip to Sarajevo. Then he’d been blown up and spent the next five years learning countless other ways to intimidate people into doing what he wanted. Ways that were far more effective than Bruce’s icy glower because he didn’t need a cowl to instill fear.

“Why did you hit Jason with a batarang?” 

The anger that Jason hears in Dick’s voice catches him off guard. Dick has always been the peacekeeper. The one who kept his calm when everything around them was going to hell. In all of the years that he’d known him, Jason can’t recall ever hearing Dick sound so angry. It made even less sense that Dick was going toe to toe with Bruce in his defense.

“You weren’t there, Dick. You don’t get an opinion on my tactics,” Bruce growls, not taking his eyes off Jason even as he reprimands his oldest foundling.

Dick is practically vibrating next to him with barely contained anger as he takes a half step in front of Jason. “You’re right. I’m just the one who pulled him out of the remains of that building after the explosion. I patched him up after you left him there without even bothering to check if he was okay. I’m the one who actually gives a shit that he’s alive.... Why didn’t you tell me who the Red Hood was?”

All the fight goes out of Dick with that last demand. In its place is a kind of resigned betrayal. Because Bruce keeping them out of the loop when it suits his purposes isn’t entirely unexpected. It would have been more against type for Bruce to have actually shared that information with Dick. Jason’s not even entirely sure that Bruce would have told Alfred unless it became absolutely necessary. The fact that he’s not even entirely sure that Alfred knows he’s alive is more upsetting than he wants to admit to.

“I didn’t see the point of burdening you.”

The response is Bruce’s usual type of vague, giving a reason without actually sharing any information with them. He’d forgotten just how utterly exhausting it was to try and figure out what Bruce was saying when he refused to say anything at all. 

“Why would knowing what happened to Jason be a burden?” Dick demands, arms crossed over his chest. It’s a subtle thing, but he leans back just enough so that his shoulder brushes against Jason’s. 

Bruce simply continues to glower at the two of them.

“I’ll ask again, what’s the point of this visit, Brucie?” Jason mirrors Dick’s position, arms crossed and shoulders back. Standing in front of Bruce, Jason can’t help but feel like the snot-nosed brat who’d been in awe of the Batman. Jason hates that the Joker and the Pit hadn’t burned that out of him and does his best to feed into that building anger. “You can’t seriously think I’m going to just go with you. Just waltz myself into Arkham and let them put me in the cell right next to the madman who murdered me. You’ll have to kill me first.”

“No one’s going to Arkham,” Dick insists, reaching over to grab Jason’s bicep. He twists around so that he’s standing in front of Jason with a restraining hand on his chest. “And no one’s killing anyone.”

It’s strange to be tilting his head down to meet Dick’s eyes, but no more strange than the desperation in the older man’s expression. Dick holds his gaze for several long seconds before turning his head towards their erstwhile father figure. Jason keeps his own eyes focused on a freckle at the corner of Dick’s jaw, still not quite believing that Dick is taking on Bruce on his behalf. That he could be worth it for Dick to tangle with the Batman instead of kowtowing to his demands.

“Bruce, if you’re only here to drag Jason away, you can leave now,” Dick informs their former father, his voice as hard as his posture. “I don’t want to, but I’ll do what I have to in order to stop you. Please don’t make me.”

The last bit is as much a threat as it is a promise. 

Bruce must realize this as well because his entire posture appears to slump minutely. Just enough to be noticeable by those who know Bruce as well as he and Dick do. To anyone else, Bruce looks just as arrogant as ever. Jason knows the arrogance will win out. Bruce simply cannot fathom a situation in which he isn’t the dominating force who exerts his will over everyone else.

“You know what he’s done, Dick,” Bruce says, attempting a different tactic. “You’ve seen the body count and read the autopsies. He may look like Jason, but he’s not our Jason anymore. The Pit twisted him into something else. He’s a criminal wearing Jason’s face, which makes it this all the more difficult.”

The words shouldn’t hurt as much as they do. Jason had spent the past five years doing everything he could to ensure that Bruce didn’t have the ability to hurt him anymore, but a few harsh words and Jason feels like bumbling child all over again. Someone who had never and would never be worthy of the mantle of Robin. It didn’t matter that he’d been meticulous in his planning. That he’d done everything with the endgame of not only killing the Joker, but of also keeping drugs away from the already children of Gotham—all because a few dozen of the city’s worst criminals had ended up dead in the process. He’d known Bruce wouldn’t necessarily approve, but he’d at least hoped that Bruce would attempt to understand. Instead, the man he’d grown up admiring and doing everything he could to emulate had condemned him without a second thought.

“Get the fuck out,” Dick growls, his body utterly tensed with coiled rage. 

“Dick—”

“No. You do not get to treat Jason like this in my home.” Dick crosses the distance between them in two quick strides, crowding Bruce in the entryway despite his slighter stature. “I choose who gets to be here and I want you gone. You’re not a god, Bruce, so you don’t get to choose who’s guilty and who’s not.”

To Jason’s utter amazement, Bruce actually seems to listen. Or at the very least puts up the pretence of it. Bruce inclines his head briefly then turns with a flourish worthy of his nighttime counterpart and reaches for the door. 

Bruce pauses at the last moment, hand on the knob, and glances over his shoulder at Jason. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re alive.”

Jason stumbles backwards as though struck, slumping onto the couch. That parting shot actually hurts worse than Bruce trying to convince Dick that he’s a Pit-addled monster. He knows that Bruce fully believes that he’s beyond saving. That he’s nothing more than a broken soldier who needs to be put down.

“Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t matter,” Dick says as he climbs over the back of the couch and gathers Jason up in his arms.

Permission granted, Jason curls up against Dick. He pulls his legs up onto the couch, making himself as small as possible in Dick’s arms. For all that the confrontation with Bruce has left him absolutely worn thin, it was a lot less shattering than he’d been expecting. Dick may have been confident that he could talk Bruce out of dragging him to Arkham, but Jason is still surprised to be sitting alongside the older man at the end of it. The only reason Jason knows that he’s not hallucinating still being with Dick is the dull ache radiating throughout his entire body.

The old black and white movie they were watching before is still playing quietly on the television. Jason has no idea what’s happening on screen, but it’s a distraction that he desperately needs then. He may have spent the past five years training to be a better vigilante than Bruce, but he hadn’t expected his former mentor to bring emotions into their confrontation. Because that wasn’t Bruce’s style. Jason had spent most of his childhood believing that the only real emotions Bruce felt were anger and disapproval. The rest of the time Bruce had seemed to be utterly emotionless. Until that very moment, Jason hadn’t even been certain that Bruce had thought about him at all in the intervening years except to recall his failure. 

Jason’s not sure how much of a reprieve he’s been granted, but he’s not going to waste it. He desperately wants to spend at least one day simply being. He has no plan, no agenda, and no ulterior motive for the first time since he became aware of himself after the Pit. It’s a novel experience that Jason finds both freeing and terrifying.

“I’m not sure I’m worth you wrecking your relationship with Bruce,” Jason says quietly without looking at Dick. He keeps his gaze fixed on the television, not paying attention to what’s happening on the screen so much as allowing it to distract him. He doesn’t want to be looking at Dick when the older man agrees with him.

The kiss Dick presses against his hair is unexpected, but not at all unwelcome. “You’re my Little Wing. You’ll always be worth it.”

Jason tilts his head back just enough to brush his lips against the side of Dick’s neck. He breathes in deeply, his entire body relaxing into the comforting embrace. Whatever’s going to happen with Bruce will happen. Until then, Jason wants to stay exactly where he is. For the first time in far too long, he wants something that has nothing to do with vengeance. It’s too soon to say he’s content, but, if given enough time, Jason thinks he could be.


End file.
